Culture

What is a flakmoppe?

The Internet is a strange and wonderful place. This was additionally confirmed today when I was checking my stats and discovered that someone in China had visited my blog. This is not so uncommon. The unusual thing was the search-term used. The visitor had searched google with the phrase

what is a flakmoppe

This is the internet being used at its best for cross-cultural experiences. It is a brilliant question which touches the strange heartland of Swedish mystique and culture. The flakmoppe is a moped with a difference.

Most commonly used on small islands (but also in the countryside), this moped has been adapted to be able to transport material. The moped has three wheels (two in the front) and a small platform upon which the rider can transport small amounts of goods (or other people). The advantage of this is that on many small Swedish islands no cars could be transported there and no larger roads where built. So the islanders had to rely on something smaller for their daily lighter transport needs.

The flakmoppe used to be reasonably widespread but now remains an important mode of transportation on the islands of Sweden and in the hearts of the nostalgic and flakmoppe enthusiasts.

Posted on by mklang

Offline in London

If you have noticed that it has been quite from this corner of the Internet its because I have been offline in London. Partly I was there lecturing about Copyleft, Free Software and Creative Commons on an intellectual property course organised by Andrew Murray at the LSE. I naturally found time for shopping and culture.

The main cultural event was the Victoria and Albert Museum in general and the Che Guevara exhibition in particular. In addition to graffiti spotting (results will be online on flickr soon).

The shopping was mainly books (I really should try to cut down a little). I frequented mainly second hand stores and ended up with a dozen booksâ?¦ here are some highlights: Fareed Zakaria’s The Future of Freedom, Loretta Napoleoni’s Terror Inc, Peter Drahos & John Braithwaite â?? Information Feudalism. Two books by Paul Virilio (The Information Bomb and Negative Horizon) and Val Dusekâ??s The Philosophy of Technology.

Posted on by mklang

Serendipity

Serendipity is making fortunate discoveries by accident. It is also one of those words that both sounds good and denotes a good thing.

While looking for the bibliographic data on Lawrence Rosenâ??s book â??Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Lawâ?? (itâ??s the best on FOSS licensing and it’s also online here), I came across another Lawrence Rosen and his new book â??Law as Cultureâ??. The title was enough â?? I bought it.

Now that I have the book I read the front flap of the dust jacket:

Law is integral to culture, and culture to law. Often considered a distinctive domain with strange rules and stranger language, law is actually a part of a cultureâ??s way of expressing its sense of the order of things.

Rosen is a legal anthropologist and he presents a nice intro to the area of law and culture. All this is good stuff and I am looking forward to reading the rest. How did this book end up in my library and on my â??must readâ?? list? A case of mixed identity, two authors with the same name, an interest in software licensingâ?¦

Serendipity isnâ??t it great?

Posted on by mklang

Firefly – the documentary

It has been called “possibly the best Creative Commons-licensed content yet”…hmm maybe you have to be a fan to say this! But whatever I am downloading it now and looking forward to seeing it (and finding out what the fuss is all about).

What is it? It’s the documentary Done The Impossible – The Fans’ Tale of Firefly & Serenity. This is the story of the rise and fall and rebirth of the cult TV show “Firefly,”
as told from the perspective of the fans who helped save it. It was first released on DVD – and the fans loved it. So the creators went a step further – they released a Creative Comons by-nc-sa this means that it’s free to download edit and spread. As the post on P2P blog wrote: “For free, and for the right reasons”.

Read more about the projecy from the release notes:

We philosophically agree with the concepts of Creative Commons. In our opinion, the modern state of copyright is counter productive to creativity and free culture. It puts unnatural restraints on “fair use”, hinders the creative process and has fundamentally destroyed an entire industry before it was even born. Just think of the amazing products, enhancements, embellishments and re-mixes to creative works that could be built with today’s technology and talents. But because modern copyrights are so restrictive, nobody dares do anything that *might* infringe on somebody’s oh so holy copyright. Thus, we have chosen to not go down that road with our documentary. Enjoy it, share it, re-mix it all you like, just be sure to follow the license below.

Done the Impossible Torrent (hosted by Legaltorrents.com)

(via P2P blog)

Posted on by mklang

Social and cultural aspects of mobile phones

The social and cultural impact of mobile media has received too little study so here is an interesting call for papers to an international conference on social and cultural aspects of mobile phones, convergent media, and wireless technologies – The conference website Mobile Media 2007 will be up in August 2006.

Date: 2-4 July 2007

Place: The University of Sydney, Australia

…This relatively short history of mobile telephony is concurrently marked by the shift of the role of users from consumers to active producers – and mobile media is being heralded as a new site for consumption, democratic expression, individualism, citizenship, and creativity.

We also invite papers on all aspects of mobile media, including, but certainly not restricted to:

* what does it mean to talk about mobiles as media?
* how do we map and theorise the transformations underway with mobile platforms, applications, and networks?
* mobile art
* mobiles and photography
* emerging cultural and narrative forms for mobiles (such as mobile films and videos)
* intersections between mobiles and Internet technologies
* wireless technologies and cultures
* mobile television, radio, and other kinds of broadcasting
* video calling and communications
* sexuality, intimacy, and mobile media
* mobile media and national or regional cultures
* subcultures, minority cultures, majoritarian cultures, and mobile media
* how do gender, sexuality, disability, socio-economics, cultural and linguistic contexts inflect cultural practices in the far-from-even-and-even terrain of mobiles?
* mobile media and political economy
* mobile gaming
* what are the implications of mobile media for our concepts of culture, communication, and media
* mobiles, community, and public sphere
* mobile media, place and space
* ramifications of mobile media for creative, cultural and media industries
* challenges of mobile media for policy, regulation, and legislation.

Posted on by mklang

iCommons Governance

Tom Chance has written a thought provoking article about the governance and finances of iCommons summit in Rio

The second iCommons summit…proved many things about the free culture movement. The most exciting development is that we’re growing rapidly, both in terms of the numbers of activists and advocates who identify themselves with the movement…But the summit also highlighted some issues that iCommons needs to address if it is to maintain its vitality and legitimacy.

From this humble begining Tom explains what the iCommons needs to do to develop into a the organisation it hopes to become. Well worth reading.

The position held by CC is to a large part due to the reputation of the organisation. The belief the users have in what the CC is and what its goal’s are. The question (reflected in Tom’s article) is whether the organisation has a clear ideological goal with which the organisation can grow and develop?

Posted on by mklang

Hello Peru!

The Creative Commons licenses were launched in Peru yesterday. This means that users in Peru now can choose CC licenses in their own language and adapted to their legal environment.

From the press release:

â??The Peruvian version of the Creative Commons licenses will be launched after the iLaw Program 2006 being held at Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru. Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford University, CEO & Chairman of Creative Commons, will deliver the keynote speech on the importance of Creative Commons Peruâ??, says Oscar Montezuma.

â??CC has been very well received in Peru. It has quickly gained the interest of many individuals and institutions ranging from the private to public sector. Success has been such, that I think Peru can eventually become a promising global free culture spot in South Americaâ??.

â??We are proud of the achievements of the Creative Commons community in Peru. This is a success for all Peruvian authors and creators,â?? adds Pedro Mendizabal.

Congratulations to the CC Peruvian Team.

Posted on by mklang

Summer sale?

This arrived in my mailbox and thought it might be of interest. SAGE Publications are offering free online full text access to the current and back issues of selected cultural studies journals (see list below) until August 31st 2006.

To access the journals, register at: https://online.sagepub.com/cgi/register?registration=FT6122

The journals include:

Body & Society
Crime, Media, Culture
Cultural Studies, Critical Methodologies
European Journal of Cultural Studies
French Cultural Studies
International Journal of Cultural Studies
Journal of Consumer Culture
Journal of Visual Culture
Media, Culture & Society
Space and Culture
Theory, Culture & Society

Is this limited open access a strange form of the summer sale or are SAGE simply trying to ensure that people have something good to read during their summer holidays?

Posted on by mklang

Creative Commons Culture and Terra Nullius

I recently published an article in a Swedish journal called InfoTrend. The article included an English abstract which you can read below. The journal wanted me to sign a copyright form which I did. Their contract also included a clause granting me permission to reproduce the article on my website – so I feel I must! So here it is. I realise that I probably should refuse to sign all such documents and demand that they implement CC licenses and open access values but then not many articles would be published and I will not be able to spread the word. It’s a catch 22 kind of situation.

Creative common licensing model as an alternative The great land grab between the 15th and 18th centuries was often legitimised by the concept of terra nullius – since the land was not being commercially exploited, it was being wasted and was therefore free for anyone to take. This stance has in hindsight been criticised for its tragic impact on the cultures and ecology of the lands being taken. Thus today the concept of terra nullius has fallen in disrepute. Despite this the concept is being widely used in the debate on the ownership of copyrightable material. The actions of major cultural producers, such as Disney, show that exploiting from the public domain is a profitable business model. This article discusses the implications of these actions and presents the Creative Commons licensing model as an alternative for buildning a body of cultural material, which is secured under copyright, but can still be used in a manner akin to the public domain.

Posted on by mklang